Sunday, October 26, 2008

Stupid Internet Rumors.....

I have "dear family member" who tends to fall for every internet rumor out there, and will either tell me about it on the phone, or Fw:fw:fw:fw:fw:fw: it to everyone in her email address book with the title of "PLEASE READ!"

The latest one just did not ring true to me. Even when hearing about it on the phone.

The rumor goes like this:

"Those 'cute' cocktail carrots you buy in grocery stores come from deformed crooked big carrots. They are put through a machine to become small cocktail carrots. But after they are cut to size they are soaked in large vats of water mixed with chlorine to preserve them.

Then she went on to tell me that they are SWEET because they are soaked in a sugar solution,or worse yet, a HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP SOLUTION! *gasp*

Great, I'm getting visions of giant mutant carrots being forced into shape....but so what? I've GROWN those mutant carrots in my garden before..you know the ones that you pull out and they have two roots on them? Or they start looking like an Orange Abraham Lincoln or something? It's a carrot.

As for the chlorine part, a check on snopes proved the following:

First, baby-cut carrots are cut down from bigger carrots, but the carrots used are specially bred to be sweeter tasting and their color is even throughout the carrot. Malformed carrots and those not the right size for baby-cut carrots will be left either as whole carrots, turned into juice or used for animal feed.

Second, the baby carrots are bathed in chlorine as an antimicrobial agent, and this is considered an accepted practice when processing all fresh-cut, ready-to-eat vegetables.

They are rinsed to remove any excess chlorine before packaging.

Third, what about that white "film" on the carrots? This is nothing more than a dried out carrot surface. Any carrot, even one from your own garden, will get this dried out look if it were peeled and not kept in a moist environment. If your carrots start looking whitish, simply rehydrate them with a little water.

Geeze Louise.....Needless to say that my doubts were confirmed. And if my relative would "Carrot ALL" (care at all) about what she was forwarding she could have checked it out. But of course, these things....these scare stories...are always good for email fw:fw:fw:fw:fw:fw: fodder.

Is it against the law to put your own relatives into your spam filter? :cÞ

20 comments:

I am constantly getting those kind of emails! They drive me nuts but I have gotten tired of responding with an explanation or links to snopes, symantec or wherever. I am always amazed at how gullible people are to believe everything that they are sent in emails! Use your common sense, people!!!

We were stationed overseas in countries where "night soil" is used to fertilize fields. We were cautioned by none other than the State Dept. and military docs to soak our veggies before we used them in a bleach/water solution. Yet to glow in the dark. And we eat the baby carrots.

When my ISP was merged into another, I discoverd what had happened to a number of my subscriptions. They had been caught in the ISP's spam filters. The new provider served up a list of what was in quaratine each day, and I was able to release the ones I wanted and "white list" the ones that should always be put through.

Thanks for the info on carrots...that was intertaining...lol... BONNIE!!!!! I LOVE your book!!!! Thank you very much....and thanks for the autograph...I am hoping that one day I will have the opportunity to talk to you in person...take care....hugzPam

the biggest problem with these fw.fw.fw.fw.fw.fw mails is this:You are giving away emailadresses from a lot of people TO a lot of people.... what If they have a mailervirus on the computer? that virus picks up on all these mailadresses and starts to send out virusattacks and virusmails! thanks but no thanks. every time I get one of these fw.fw.fw.fw mails I delete them as quick as possible!On the chlorine in the water thing... we were in the USA a couple of years ago and I - stuppid me - drank a glass of tabwater... I became so ill I had to stay in bed for the rest of the day... And having such a familymember ... she sounds a lot like my sister, I bounce her mails back everytime I see FW in the header....

Every time I get one of these, I immediately go to www.snopes.com and check it out. Then I send the link back to whomever sent me the email. It drives me crazy. The one about Starbucks and the soldiers in Iraq drove me around the bend...especially when it was forwarded to me by my EXTREMELY conservative boss. I replied with the Snopes address and something about irresponsibility in sending out things prior to verification. (I am lucky to still have a job...)

If whoever sends me a FWD that is not true includes other email addresses, I forward the snopes.com link and/or the truthorfiction.com link to everyone on the email. Come to think of it, it's been awhile since I've gotten any. I guess including the line "Please check out these sites before sending" has finally gotten through. :-)

Rinsing freshly washed dishes in a weak chlorine bleach/water solution is an accepted method of disinfecting them. I've read that you should disinfect baby bottles this way. I think it must have been common in my mother's generation as this is the age group I hear about doing this most often.

Ha! My father in law read one a few years ago about how deodorant causing cancer. So now he doesn't wear any! Haha, now we have to avoid him in person and his silly forwards! No, I'm just kidding, but I sure wish he would have checked the e-mail out beforehand.

Been there ,got them. What's a girl to do? You can't wipe out half of your address book, because most of these things fw.fw.fw. come from those same wonderful friends and family. I ignore most of them or just plain delete. If it's that bad I'll hear about it on the news. Like the 'listeria' contamination at one of our meat packing factory. Big time news!In the meantime smile when you get them, it's because that person cares about you,and loves you enough, to want to warn you about the latest catastrophy.

I love snopes!! I alwasy do a "reply to all" and then attach a copy of the snopes link and tell them, this is false, please check snopes before you forward messages. It either makes them think or it pisses them off and they take you off their list. Either way, it works!